David Frum is a conservative thinker, married to a well-known anti-feminist conservative, Danielle Crittenden. Frum is often given as the inventor of the "axis of evil" term and in general he's the thinking man's conservative (heh).
Now he has written a fun piece on the wingnuts' defeat in health care, with bits like this:
Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.
It's hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they'll compensate for today's expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:
(1) It's a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.
(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.
...
No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the "doughnut hole" and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents' insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?
Yeah. Once something is given to people it is very hard to take it away. Still, I found it most interesting that Frum admits his preferred way of providing health care does offer the elderly only the hole in the donut, does regard being a woman a pre-existing condition and so on.
Happy Frum is not, right now. He's even grumpy about the Fox News. Fox was supposed to help the Republicans but now it seems like the Republicans are there to help Fox instead!
Oops. But then what do you expect when you believe in the power of corporations over the power of individuals?